Whether it’s her choreography for “Slam the Door, Hit Ignore” or the “Nonsense” outro that she changes for every concert she does, Sabrina Carpenter has all the charm required to become a pop star. Although her initiation has been slow, the growth she is now seeing is organic and monumental. Currently, the top 3 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 are held by her three singles, a feat only achieved by The Beatles before. Short n’ Sweet debuted with 362k sales, making her the third biggest, following Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. This is huge, considering many established pop artists with much bigger fan bases, like Billie Eilish or Ariana Grande, had albums released this year.
If your introduction to Sabrina Carpenter was from the TikTok hits “Feather” and “Nonsense”, then Short n’ Sweet will not be too far off from what you could expect from an album by her—which was exactly the case for me. Sassy, smug lyrics with wordplays of sexual innuendos—that’s how I perceived Sabrina Carpenter, as someone who just got introduced to SC this year.
But what makes her stand out? Why is she getting so much traction as opposed to artists who have been doing it for a while, for example, Clairo, Suki Waterhouse, Gracie Abrams, or even Halsey? Carpenter, after her smash hit song of the summer Espresso, has been everywhere. Her sassy and snarky attitude is adored by the general masses and has caused her to become a fan favorite very fast.
For the past few years, we’ve seen the recurring theme of pop artists writing emotional, sad lyrics over a mellow, acoustic, or minimal production beat. Taylor Swift, Clairo, and Billie Eilish are some common names that come up. Although Billie has notched up her production game in the new album Hit Me Hard and Soft, the consistent ‘sad’ themes remain.
Sabrina is someone who doesn’t take herself too seriously and is just the perfect blend of sassy and cocky. So, it is somewhat understandable why someone like her would be a refreshing change from what we are used to. People have been craving that change for a while, considering how Charli XCX’s Brat summer was embraced so grandly by the masses.
It is safe to say that people have had enough of tortured poets recently (all 40 variants of it), and they want to listen to songs that don’t require depressingly sifting through a thesaurus.
Although I do think Carpenter’s lyrics are nothing short of Nobel-worthy with lines like “Come right on me, I mean Camaraderie” or “Mountain Dew (Mount n’ Do) it for you” or wanting “A boy who’s jacked and kind”. Her lyrics and wordplays are nonsensically hilarious and it seems like that’s exactly where she found her strong suit and she embraces it wholeheartedly. It doesn’t come off as try-hard either, rather it expresses her personality quite well. Clips on how to establish dominance over a cat or teaching Amelia how she makes her Nonsense outros on her Chicken Shop Date– it does seem like she was born to be in the limelight. After all, she has all the elements for it.
But, this is not Sabrina’s first rodeo. Short n’ Sweet is her sixth full-length studio album, with her first album, Eyes Wide Open, releasing all the way back in 2015. Sabrina was introduced to the showbiz lifestyle as a child star, starring in a Disney Channel series called Girl Meets World. And like most Disney Channel stars, that led to the release of her first single when she was only 15 years old, called Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying.
Before writing this review, I wanted to get familiar with her older works and got a whiplash when I realized that the first song on her last album, Emails I Can’t Send, was about her dad cheating on her mom. The album was filled mostly with piano ballads with very personal and melancholic lyrics.
The song Because I Liked a Boy was a response to Olivia Rodrigo’s songs that kept alluding to her with lines like “blonde girl who’s so much older than her” and got very dirty with parasocial fans picking sides and going as far as sending death threats. However, that feud is long past, and they are both doing exceptionally well in their respective genres.
Short n’ Sweet was not about the relationship with Joshua Bassett, but it is speculated that it is about her short romance with pop star Shawn Mendes and how he reportedly went back to his ex Camila Cabello soon after they dated.
The third single from the album Taste with lyrics like, “Heard you’re back together, and if that’s true, you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you,” further reaffirms the theory. Chronically online fans on X (formerly Twitter) have been working overtime to match the timeline and lyrics to their relationship, which I did not care or have the patience to go through, but you can look it up here.
Much of the lyrics in the songs alluded to that relationship. She herself said about why she picked Short n’ Sweet to be her album title:
“It was not because I’m vertically challenged. It was really like I thought about some of these relationships and how some of them were the shortest I’ve ever had, and they affected me the most.”
However, she is now happily in a relationship with Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who is head over heels in love with her (check his following on Instagram), and has hard-launched him in her music video for Please Please Please, a modern reenactment of Bonnie and Clyde. There are cute references to him in the album here and there, like referring to him as “Honey Bee,” with “B” being Barry in Espresso.
Coming back to the album, pop has evolved quite a bit. If we think of the best pop albums in this decade, like Emotion by Carly Rae Jepsen or 1989 by Taylor Swift, the chorus and bridge are loud and catchy. Over the years, the definition of pop has gotten more diverse. Indie artists are taking over this genre thanks to TikTok algorithms. Carpenter’s choruses, too, are much more mellow and subdued, and in certain songs jazzy too, in the album, with exceptions being Taste and Juno. Understandably, these are widely regarded as fan favorites.
The theme of lyrics that are cute, charming, and sassy follows in most songs.
In Good Graces, she asks her partner to stay in her good graces because she won’t hesitate to switch up and move on with his “favorite athlete.” The backing vocals of “I don’t give a fuck about you” are something you can’t help but groove and sing along to. The song is definitely in my top three. Please Please Please, Sharpest Tool, Dumb and Poetic, Coincidence, and Slim Pickins have similar lyrics, calling her partner not that smart to the point of not even knowing the difference between “they’re, there, and their.” But while Coincidence had a fun bridge and the strumming of the guitar, Slim Pickins had its falsetto and cute chorus melody. Sharpest Tool and Dumb and Poetic, with their balladic tunes, fell short and seemed forgettable, further reinforcing where her strengths lie.
Bed Chem is a sultry-sweet song and had some good moments. The chorus was catchy and had its fair share of sexual wordplay. Lie to Girls is an attempt at making an Instagram post “You don’t have to lie to girls. If they like you, they’ll just lie to themselves” into a sad pop song. However, the melodious verse somewhat makes up for the tacky chorus. The album ends with Don’t Smile. I quite liked this song because of the dreamy, ambient feel the production gave it.
Overall, Short n’ Sweet, although flawed, definitely deserves the accolades it’s getting. It is a refreshing change in pop music. If we see the newer faces of pop music likeChappell Roan and Carpenter, they each are choosing their own unique path and excelling at it.
It is safe to assume that people don’t want to see derivatives of the same few chord progressions over the same overproduced and oversimplified tunes. They don’t want sad, sappy songs. People want overconfident, fun, bratty, and sassy summers they can sing along to.
While Taylor Swift might have the largest fanbase that will keep buying several variants of the same album to keep her at the top of the charts, these newer artists with organic reach can give us a glimpse into what the future of pop looks like. And dare I say, it does look quite promising.